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Reasons 3 and 4 Why I Home School.

Yesterday a question came up on Yahoo Answers that I felt compelled to respond to.

I have never been homeschooled and haven't thought about it with my own future children, but I have to do a research paper on different types of education for school. I will probably chose homeschooling to do it on, so I want the opinions of those who do it to base some of it on. My question is (not trying to criticize or anything, I really want to know) what are your reasons for it, besides controlling what exactly they learn. Is it for religious reasons, so they don't have to separate, so they don't have to fall into a strict routine, more comfortable environment,or a bad school district or anything else? I'm just curious because I need different opinions on the reasons of it, not if it's effective or ineffective.

I've thought of this a lot over the past ten years. Certainly our reasons for homeschooling have changed over the years somewhat, but some reasons remain constant.

One of my reasons have to do with the way I was taught as a student - in a regular school/classroom/institutional setting!

I spent most of my elementary and high school years at a Catholic school. In 5th and 8th grade I was given the opportunity to simply go out and learn as much as I possibly could on one subject for a set number of weeks. In 8th grade, our science exam was to come in and write for everything we had learned about the solar system in one hour. This thrilled me to the point that I only learned the common facts (like the distance to the sun and the names of Jupiter's moons) but also any obscure factoid I could find to spice up my exam paper! In my senior year of high school I took a course called Selected Themes, where I had to prepare one paper or presentation per quarter. I loved it. LOVED. IT.

So my schooling had given me a "taste" for independent learning, and had also given me the desire to really dive into a topic and study it inside and out without being hindered or rushed by the class! I have tried to give my own students a taste of that in our homeschool withs. unit studies.

On further pondering I realized that I HAD been homeschooled as well, and didn't even know it! I've blogged before about my math woes. I'll bet a lot of parents spend a lot of time homeschooling their kids even though they go to regular school. We call it "helping with homework." I wrote my experience with homework help back in 2006:

My poor saintly grandmother would spend hours upon hours with me going over long division, borrowing, fractions…AAAUUUGGGG!! I probably shortened her lifespan by 10 years with my inability to grasp this stuff without an unusual amount of concentrated effort.

Yes literally hours. On the couch or at the table, going over math problems until I got each night's assignment done, sometimes not getting done until after 8 or 9 in the evening! It is only now as an adult and a homeschooling mom that I realize that my grandmother was indeed homeschooling me, she was just doing it after school hours and with the school materials (and afterall, isn't that like a packaged curriculum?)

Thank God I had patient grandmother, because if had not been for her help, I probably would have had a very different sort of academic career. There have been so many times working with my own remedial math kid that I have had deja vu - although this time I am the tutor and one of my kids is the student.

Last week, my son Gabe was still struggling with his math work and in fact did one lesson and got almost half of the problems wrong. So I set one whole morning aside to work with him just on that. I had him read each problem and tell me how he should solve it. Story problems are hard for him. They were hard for me too in school because I couldn't easily determine what functions I had to do to find the answer. So Gabe and I talked through what function we should do and why and step by step he found the answers for himself. I also discovered that for two part problems he wasn't finishing the second part and for fraction work he wasn't turning mixed numbers into improper fractions first. Once we had that all sorted through, he did much better! This was the kind of help grandma gave me, and now I'm passing it on, mostly to Gabe!

So these are two reasons that we continue to homeschool. Now that I think about it I think it's funny that my school experiences gave me a predilection to be a homeschooler!

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It seems that one of the biggest events in confirmation preparation in this country is the letters of support to be given to the confirmation candidates during their mandatory retreats.

I have three such letters saved on this blog:

Confirmation letter to my daughterConfirmation letter to my fourth sonConfirmation letter to to my third son
I've asked my children what they remember about the letter they got from me and their dad, and also what they remembered about the letters they received.
The answer was not much, or at least nothing specific. In general they were happy to have gotten a bag full of letters and there was a sense of feeling loved and supported. I guess that's the main thing - for them to have a sense that this is an important step in their spiritual growth, and that people they know, love and respect have taken the time out of their lives to let them know that!
So here are some tips on procuring and writing letters for young confirmation candidates. Start thinkin…

March 5 and 6, 2010
My Dearest Gabe;
I can’t express to you enough what a wonderful gift you have been to your father and me from the very moment you were born. You have always been such a beautiful, good natured, fun loving and enjoyable baby, little boy and now young man. I am so proud of you and so honored to be your mother.

You know Gabe, you have always been a big guy. When I was pregnant with you the midwife was always amazed at how big you were getting inside of my stomach. And when you came out (with much effort!) you were as big as some 3 month olds! You have stayed ahead of the curve in size for kids your age. I think it is because God has given you a big heart. You are so full of love and joy you needed a big heart to keep it all in and a big body to hold it all. You are my gentle giant.

I know God has a special plan for you and I look forward to helping you figure out what that might be. Always hang on to the memory of these times, remember all that your father and I…

In a few weeks you will be confirmed as a full member of the Catholic Church. Congratulations! I know that you have really worked hard to understand and learn as much about your Catholic faith as you could before receiving this sacrament.
On your retreat there are a few things your Dad and I would like you to remember -

You were our fourth son in a row but you have always been a unique little boy. I love your bright blue eyes, all of those freckles and dimples. I guess God really wanted you to tap into your Celtic Heritage!

I love how you are always ready with a quick smile for everyone.

I loved how even when you were a baby you would cry when a baby on t.v. was crying, or if a kid outside was crying or basically when you saw anyone crying - you didn't even have to know why - you just did. That's great empathy and you still have that today. Don't lose that. It's a great gift to be able to relate to people even when they are at their lowest.15 R…

This is from a discussion I participated on over at the now defunct Birth Control and Catholic Church Forum aka the boardIlovetocommenton. This was a very pro-contraception, dissident Catholic discussion board. I originally posted this on January 21, 2004. Their points initalics, and my responses are highlighted.

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One key point we keep making on the discussions is about how and why the sex act is actually used by married couples, and in this sense, there is absolutely no difference between NFP and ABC in the acts couples make use of (assuming they're using NFP to avoid conception). I would disagree. The is a key element in the practicing Catholic couple's use of NFP in the marital act, is their respectful understanding and acceptance of the teaching of the Catholic Church as well as their submission to that in obedience to Christ's teaching. This is something that is fundamentally missing from the marital act with artificial contraception.

I cannot believe that you are old enough to make your confirmation!! The time has flown by for me! When I was growing up, I always wondered what my own daughter would be like. And I was sure that I would have a daughter because I was the oldest daughter, of the oldest daughter, of the oldest daughter!

But after having your four brothers in a row, even I was beginning to have my doubts! But God had you in the plan after all!

I was amazed when you were born - at your beauty and femininity -at just at how lucky we were to have you!

You were a special surprise too because you came only 15 months after your brother Noah! But as hard as it was having two babies at the same time, I love how close you two have always been, and grateful that you would always have each other to love and count on.

Of course you know you were named for your grandpa Isadore - whom I sure you would have loved very much. In some ways you are very much like him - quietly keeping things to …

God's Not Dead is an uplifting and enjoyable Christian-based movie appropriate for students from elementary school through college and their parents. We went with two of my teenage children and my 8-year-old daughter and we all enjoyed the movie and have had many discussions about it since.

We enjoyed it as a family, but I would also recommend this movie for church youth groups and homeschooling groups. I hope to buy the DVD when it comes out to donate it to our parish.

The premise of the movie involves a freshman philosophy student's challenge to defend the existence of God to his adversarial and intimidating philosophy teacher and his classmates. The stories of other characters (a preacher, a selfish business man, a young woman caring for her mother with dementia, a successful blogger who faces a devastating diagnosis, and a Muslim convert to Christianity) are woven into the plot line until they are…